


In a Cabin in the Woods

by SegaBarrett



Category: Fear the Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Exhaustion, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-25 19:01:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18580657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: Troy's at his breaking point, and Nick steps in.





	In a Cabin in the Woods

**Author's Note:**

  * For [problematiquefave](https://archiveofourown.org/users/problematiquefave/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I don't own Fear, and I make no money from this.
> 
> A/N: Beta'd by Chaosprincess.

Thirty-eight hours, forty-six minutes, and twenty-nine seconds. Troy Otto had kept the timer on, curious to see how long he had gone without sleep.  
And the timer was still tick, tick, tickering. 

Madison’s voice was floating around, but it was a hazy air of directions that Troy wasn’t following. Thankfully, Strand seemed to be responding back to her – Strand’s voice was so very low, a kind of bass thrum that kept the balls of Troy’s feet bouncing ever so slightly.

That helped when it was getting hard to keep standing. Any point of focus helped.

Some were preferable, however.

Nick Clark had a way of walking that was almost like dancing.

Troy hadn’t spent his childhood dancing, of course, but it was the way he imagined it would be, floating over water and guiding the dead down the streets without a care in the world. Troy wondered what it would be like to feel like that.

Instead it was always a constant throb of pain, today more than ever before. 

“Troy? Are you all right?” It was Madison who asked first, and when she reached out to touch Troy’s shoulder he flinched back and walked further away from the ranch. 

The sound of Nick’s feet colliding with the dirt came next, followed by the sound of his frenzied breathing as he caught up with Troy in just enough time to catch him.

Why was it getting so hard to see anything, Troy wondered, and when had the sky moved up in front of him like that?

He shut his eyes.

***

“Troy.” 

Troy thought he was dreaming the word at first. It had certainly cut through the dream he had been having; an odd one, as Troy usually didn’t dream. 

His mother had been there, Tracey Otto with her broad shoulders, big eyes and thin-lined face. Except maybe it wasn’t Tracey at all, because Troy couldn’t remember her ever smiling, not really – she usually wore a smirk on her face, or maybe a look of lazy contentment when she had been drinking for the better part of the sad.

Most of the time, she just looked sad.

“Troy,” he heard again, and he tried to reach up to see her, to talk to her because he really did miss her even if he didn’t know what he was supposed to say. “Troy.” 

He blinked his eyes and the dream was gone, now; it was Nick standing beside him with a worried, pursed look on his face. 

“Nick?” Troy asked. His voice sounded rough, far away. He began to sit up slowly, letting out a long, strangled sigh. He couldn’t place what happened, but he knew Nick’s name; it wouldn’t stop running through his head, even though he wasn’t entirely sure of anything else.

“Troy. Try not to get up. Just stay right there.”

“What happened?” he asked. His chest hurt, as did his legs, as if he had been running. And his feet had never quite healed from the brutal march they had been on weeks ago.

Nick frowned. 

“You just passed out. I think you must have been running on fumes for a while. Why didn’t you say anything to any of us?”

Troy knew that Nick meant to him, not to any of the others, and he shrugged.

“There wasn’t anything to tell,” he replied, flashing an innocent smile. It hadn’t seemed like anything worth worrying Nick over. “I only just started feeling it.” That wasn’t entirely true, but Troy had always been a little unsteady on his feet. Usually, he was too busy running after Nick to focus on it, the way his legs bobbed and weaved as if he was hanging by a thread.

Nick shook his head with concern but seemed to drop the matter, choosing instead to crouch down and pick up a small bottle of water, handing it to Troy.

“Drink,” he instructed gently, plopping down cross-legged beside him. “We’re going to need you at one-hundred percent if we’re going to get anything done around here.”

Troy let out a small chuckle, realizing with a jolt that his throat was dryer than he had realized; there was something in his throat that refused to go away and felt like it wanted to choke him. 

He shook his head, not wanting Nick to have to worry about him. It was odd to see Nick worrying about him at all – most people tried to go the other way when they saw Troy coming, even his own parents had been like that.

“Drink,” Nick said again, putting a gentle hand on the back of Troy’s neck, rubbing careful circles. “Anything we need to get done… can wait. It’s pretty quiet here, anyway. Too quiet.” He chuckled, and Troy turned his head to stare at him. 

Nick plopped down next to Troy and pulled his legs up to his chest. 

“What are you thinking about?” Nick inquired.

That was an odd question, Troy mused. 

“About… my mother,” he admitted a second later. That was odd, him talking about what he was thinking about – most of the time it was just images, and it wasn’t as if anyone on the ranch usually asked him about it anyway. 

Nick turned his head. He felt so close.

“What about her?”

Troy shrugged.

“Nothing in particular.” Just images and flashes of images, a ray of light shining down and beating on Troy’s face when he had been young. 

A snatch of lyric caught in the air.

“Did Madison ever sing to you?” Troy blurted suddenly, and Nick looked at him, scratching his head.

“I guess. Probably,” he replied. “What brought that question on?” 

“I don’t know.” Troy stared down at his hands. He should be up and about; he hated feeling restless. Hated the thought of Nick having to slow down to take care of him. 

How many times had he assured Big Otto that no matter what, he would never make himself a burden to them?

“Troy, are you sure you feel okay?”

Troy pulled himself back to his feet.

“I’m fine,” he said again, “Let’s go back and… join everyone.” He chuckled. “No need to sit out here and…”

He began to wobble, and Nick caught him around the waist, chuckling too.

“Not so fast. Back into bed?”

***

Troy couldn’t quite remember exactly how he had gotten back into bed, only that he was there. It was odd to find someone hovering over his bed with their hands on his shoulders.

Big Otto had never come in to talk to Troy before he went to sleep, if he even knew when it was half the time and wasn’t passed out already. But Tracey had… before she had started drinking all the time.

What a dumb thing to think about, Troy mused. Tracey, Tracey, Tracey, all over his mind today, when normally he had succeeded in never thinking about her at all. 

His home had never been like the other boys’ during that brief period when he had gone to school. There had been that tenuous look from the teachers whenever they asked Troy to take something home, like they knew, like it had been written on his face.

Maybe it was.

Or maybe Jake had told them.

Where was Jake, anyway?

“You’re not going anywhere,” Nick told him. “You’re going to stay right here and rest, Troy.” Nick climbed into the bed next to him as Troy slid over, looking surprised.

“Uh, Nicky?” Troy asked. “You’re in my bed.”

“I know,” Nick replied with a smile. “How else am I supposed to make sure that you don’t go anywhere?”

“Shouldn’t you be on patrol?” Troy’s eyes were wide. Nick was so close to him that he didn’t know what to do. He could feel the heat coming off of him.

“I’d rather patrol you right now. We need to make sure that you’re going to be okay… to protect us.”

Troy shook his head.

“What about you?”

“Don’t you remember?” Nick said with a chuckle. “I’m suicide-proof.”

“That doesn’t mean that you’re death proof… You could…”

Nick pressed his lips over Troy’s, instantly making everything in his head go blank. He wondered if that had been the head injury or whether Nick just had that kind of superpower sometimes. 

Troy kissed back, letting his tongue stick out. He wondered if he looked like a snake when he did that.

Nick pulled back, sighing.

“I shouldn’t be overworking you, should I?”

Troy leaned forward out of frustration. 

“Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Nicky… Quit playing innocent. You’ve been taking care of me all day. You don’t need to. No one takes care of Troy.”

Nick gazed at him with a look that made Troy want to get up and just run as far as he could, for as long as he could. He didn’t know why it disturbed him as much as it did. He’d seen worse looks on people’s faces, after all. But Nick could be harder to read.

It was the kind of look that someone had on their face before they would plunge into a freezing river to save someone else.

Someone they… Troy still didn’t entirely understand the word… loved. 

Troy shut his eyes in an attempt to block him out. He didn’t need this right now. He would be fine; and if he wasn’t fine then he would just be dead and he’d come back and someone would know. Nick would know, and he would tell everyone. He would time him; he’d promised, hadn’t he?

“Troy, look at me,” Nick insisted.

Troy felt his eyes open; if he trusted nothing else, he trusted Nick. He always had to trust Nick. 

“You need to relax. You have to take better care of yourself, or let me take care of you, for just a little while. Think of it like… a science experiment.”

“For science?” Troy asked, eyes going wide. “Just lying around letting you take care of me?”

“Hasn’t anyone?”

Troy could feel his hand reaching into the back of his mind, and he didn’t like it, not at all. Nothing that it found back there could be any good, dusty and rusted.

Tracey was back there. He wondered how long he had managed to put her on a shelf by calling her Tracey.

She had sung to him once – when could that have been? – and he couldn’t quite remember the lyrics. That was the frustrating part, the maddening part. It was an image that was blurry, one he couldn’t quite see.

Maybe it was a dream and not a memory, but Troy didn’t dream. He had never, ever dreamed, not really.

(Not until Nick. Nick was a dream sometimes, a vision.)

_Troy, you’re burning up. My poor baby._

_Jake in the corner with his eyes as red as fire. Troy can hear the words, “Why does he…” but can’t catch any more._

_Troy, sit up just a little bit – it’s okay, I’ve got you. Nothing bad can happen to you, not ever. We’re right here._

_“Little cabin in woods, a little old man by the window stood, saw a rabbit hopping by, knocking at his door…”  
_

Troy shook his head. He couldn’t. It was impossible. Nothing good was back there.

“Nicky… I can’t. Let’s just get back to work, already. We’re losing time.”

_“Mama…”_

_“Tracey. It’s Tracey. I’m tired of being anyone’s Mama, least of all yours, Troy.”_

_Troy pulling his arms back against his chest and swallowing the request for comfort. It was just him, now. He was watching Jake, who was looking at him with a knowing glance. This was how it was always going to be, Jake seemed to be saying._

_He knew, now.  
_

“Nicky?” Troy spoke up, voice suddenly a little higher, slightly desperate. “Do you know a song… an old one?”

“I know a few of those, Troy,” Nick replied. “What kind of song? Like… Elvis or something? I could sing Hounddog but I wouldn’t sound that good.”

“No, Nicky, not just any old song. There’s one that’s been going through my head… something about ‘saw a rabbit hopping by, knocking at the door…’ It’s silly, Nicky. Just a tune that got stuck in my head. Never mind.”

Nick shook his head.

“I think I know the one you mean,” he mused, moving his hand to rest upon Troy’s shoulder, then up to his forehead. “’Come little rabbit, come inside, I’ll take care of you…’ I remember them singing it to us in school. There were hand motions and things.” Nick mimed cradling a tiny baby and sang, “I’ll take care of you…”

Troy let out a small, delighted chuckle, then tilted his head to the side, wondering how the hell that sound had come out of him.

“Sleep, Troy,” Nick whispered, then hummed softly and sang, “…I’ll take care of you.”

And Troy, against all his better judgment, decided he believed him.

And he slept.


End file.
